As a Literature student in college, I was fortunate enough to do a semester abroad. I had no interest in art and have no idea what made me walk into the Van Gogh Museum while backpacking in Amsterdam, but it changed the way I viewed the world around me.

I spent 6 hours that day enamored by the thick brush strokes and vivid colors of Van Gogh’s art and have studied his body of work ever since. I find the chaos of his brush strokes and the impressionistic depictions of real life fascinatingly complex while at the same time awkwardly comforting.

Inspired by Van Gogh’s use of color and textures, I have chosen to interpret his figurative self-portrait work as a floral; by borrowing his blend of both hard and soft line, the contrasting use of complimentary color palette and the subtly of shape in defining composition.